No. The only way Selinger goes is if the NDP loses the next provincial election, but given the close ties between Pallister and the Harper Conservatives and the fact that he has no judgement before he speaks, and the general incompetence of the PCs both as an opposition party and on the campaign trail, there still is a realistic long shot possibility of Selinger being re-elected in the spring.

What's the current health of the provincial Liberal party? In 1988 under Sharon Carstairs the Manitoba Liberals roared from one seat to twenty and official opposition status as another unpopular NDP government crashed and burned, but that success was fleeting.

What's the current health of the provincial Liberal party? In 1988 under Sharon Carstairs the Manitoba Liberals roared from one seat to twenty and official opposition status as another unpopular NDP government crashed and burned, but that success was fleeting.

I recall a poll a month or two ago put the provincial Liberals at 20%. It might not be efficiently distributed enough to generate a whole lot of seats, but it could sufficiently split the vote to collapse the NDP seat count in 2016.

What's the current health of the provincial Liberal party? In 1988 under Sharon Carstairs the Manitoba Liberals roared from one seat to twenty and official opposition status as another unpopular NDP government crashed and burned, but that success was fleeting.

I recall a poll a month or two ago put the provincial Liberals at 20%. It might not be efficiently distributed enough to generate a whole lot of seats, but it could sufficiently split the vote to collapse the NDP seat count in 2016.

Last poll I saw had the PCs crushing the NDP in rural areas (bye bye Brandon East, Swan River, Dauphin, Dawson Trail, and Gimli) and a 3-way tie in Winnipeg.

I think the NDP's disappointing performance had a lot of factors beyond Selinger, though his unpopularity was probably a factor in why the Orange Wave didn't crash over Manitoba in 2011 and the NDP didn't do all that well in 2015.

There are a lot of other factors explaining the NDP's disappointing performance in the past two federal elections, both broader trends and micro riding-level factors in Winnipeg ridings:

- A lacklustre NDP campaign and the Liberal surge in 2015

- "Strategic Voting," though the blame for that falls as much, if not more, on the NDP as it does those silly dumb voters who voted wrong.

- The Liberals fielding some serious, solid candidates (Lamoreaux and RFO have big followings and well-oiled political machines, Vandal and Mihychuk have some progressive cred being a progressive city councillor and former NDP cabinet minister respectively, and Duguid and Eyolfson were no slouches either)

- Pat Martin being kind of a doofus at times.

- The NDP's candidate stumbles in Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia, and the party's heavy-handed response which together basically wiped out any chance they had and pushed a lot of people who were backing Jonasson into Eyolfson's camp

- The NDP having difficulty finding candidates with the same level of experience and seriousness as the Liberals for all the ridings. Nothing against any of the candidates, but they fielded some fairly rookie politicians in a few ridings. Although they have a deep bench in Manitoba, no one is going to want to give up being an MLA or city councillor to run federally in a riding where the NDP traditionally runs a distant third (unless they are looking for a convenient exit from provincial politics, *cough cough Erin Selby*). I'm not sure the NDP has run as hard in places like St. Boniface or Winnipeg South as they have in places like Transcona.

- Jim Maloway. Enough said.

Most of these factors go beyond an unpopular provincial government. Even if the NDP were the type to seriously reconsider their approach rather than circling the wagons, I don't think there is any appetite within the Manitoba NDP to go through the whole process of dumping Selinger again, especially not after the result of the last attempt.

I think the NDP's disappointing performance had a lot of factors beyond Selinger, though his unpopularity was probably a factor in why the Orange Wave didn't crash over Manitoba in 2011 and the NDP didn't do all that well in 2015.

There are a lot of other factors explaining the NDP's disappointing performance in the past two federal elections, both broader trends and micro riding-level factors in Winnipeg ridings:

- A lacklustre NDP campaign and the Liberal surge in 2015

- "Strategic Voting," though the blame for that falls as much, if not more, on the NDP as it does those silly dumb voters who voted wrong.

- The Liberals fielding some serious, solid candidates (Lamoreaux and RFO have big followings and well-oiled political machines, Vandal and Mihychuk have some progressive cred being a progressive city councillor and former NDP cabinet minister respectively, and Duguid and Eyolfson were no slouches either)

- Pat Martin being kind of a doofus at times.

- The NDP's candidate stumbles in Charleswood-St. James-Assiniboia, and the party's heavy-handed response which together basically wiped out any chance they had and pushed a lot of people who were backing Jonasson into Eyolfson's camp

- The NDP having difficulty finding candidates with the same level of experience and seriousness as the Liberals for all the ridings. Nothing against any of the candidates, but they fielded some fairly rookie politicians in a few ridings. Although they have a deep bench in Manitoba, no one is going to want to give up being an MLA or city councillor to run federally in a riding where the NDP traditionally runs a distant third (unless they are looking for a convenient exit from provincial politics, *cough cough Erin Selby*). I'm not sure the NDP has run as hard in places like St. Boniface or Winnipeg South as they have in places like Transcona.

- Jim Maloway. Enough said.

I would also add that the spike in turn-out generally benefitted the Liberal Party, for example Falcon winning more total votes this time around than Martin ever did, even when races weren't particularly close. In Elmwood, the NDP and Conservatives were both down slightly, but the Liberal vote shot up by close to 10, 000 votes, and if they had put some serious effort into it, they could have actually taken that seat as well.

genstrike wrote:

Even if the NDP were the type to seriously reconsider their approach rather than circling the wagons, I don't think there is any appetite within the Manitoba NDP to go through the whole process of dumping Selinger again, especially not after the result of the last attempt.

If the NDP loses badly in Manitoba and Selinger goes down with the sinking ship, Selinger staying on may be a moot point anyways.

- "Strategic Voting," though the blame for that falls as much, if not more, on the NDP as it does those silly dumb voters who voted wrong.

Silly dumb voters?

Voted wrong?

It seems to me that they voted just right in all the Winnipeg ridings. The Conservatives were eliminated from the City. The Liberals were the only ones positioned to win all those seats. The NDP doesn't exactly have a history of winning St. Boniface, Winnipeg South or Winnipeg South Centre federally, and obviously Winnipeg North was already held by the well-known Kevin Lamoureux.

And by the end of the campaign with the NDP candidate disqualified in Charleswood-St. James, only the Liberals could win there, too.

The unpopularity of the Selinger Government was also another factor preventing the Mulcair NDP from being competitive.

The NDP should be grateful that the Liberal increase in Elmwood-Transcona came more at the expense of the Conservatives and basically helped Blaikie edge out a win in that seat.

- "Strategic Voting," though the blame for that falls as much, if not more, on the NDP as it does those silly dumb voters who voted wrong.

Silly dumb voters?

Voted wrong?

I'm being sarcastic.

In my opinion, the NDP was a victim of strategic voting because:

1. They promoted strategic voting when they thought it benefited them ("we only need 35 more seats"... and the NDP ended up winning 35 and a handful more) and then wondered why people stampeded to vote Liberal when the Liberals started gaining momentum.

2. They failed to inspire, feeling that all they needed to do to win was coast on their polling numbers and victory in Alberta, and not say anything that might rub anything the wrong way. So they didn't say much of anything at all, and gave up the initiative. Which according to Sun Tzu, is kind of a bad idea.

3. The NDP didn't do much to distinguish themselves, and allowed themselves to be outflanked on the left (whether that is in perception or in reality is up to debate). Even if they weren't completely outflanked, give a voter who only cares about defeating Harper the choice between a Conservative and two Liberal Parties, and they're going to vote for whichever Liberal Party is more likely to win.

However, it feels like there are more than a few New Democrats out there who, rather than looking in a mirror and asking themselves how they dropped the ball so badly (no, it wasn't the niqab), want to blame voters for voting wrong -- strategically voting, falling for dumb culture wars stuff, or whatever.

Debater wrote:

It seems to me that they voted just right in all the Winnipeg ridings. The Conservatives were eliminated from the City. The Liberals were the only ones positioned to win all those seats. The NDP doesn't exactly have a history of winning St. Boniface, Winnipeg South or Winnipeg South Centre federally, and obviously Winnipeg North was already held by the well-known Kevin Lamoureux.

And by the end of the campaign with the NDP candidate disqualified in Charleswood-St. James, only the Liberals could win there, too.

The unpopularity of the Selinger Government was also another factor preventing the Mulcair NDP from being competitive.

If soemone is an anti-Harper voter, why would it matter which way they voted in Winnipeg Centre or Winnipeg North? These are two ridings where the Tories are basically DOA, so even if you agree that the most important thing is eliminating Conservative MPs regardless of who you elect, there's no point to "strategic voting" in those ridings.

If his facebook comments didn't come to light and the NDP hadn't dropped Jonasson, would you say that only the NDP could win in Charleswood? Would it have been "just right" for the voters to vote NDP? After all, the NDP got more votes in that riding than the Liberals in 2011.

I also think it's good for all parties to put serious efforts into all ridings, if they can swing it, because it might be of benefit in the long term. And, it's healthy for democracy for people to have a serious choice. The NDP didn't exactly have a history of winning in Quebec, and now 35% of their caucus comes from there. The Liberals didn't exactly have a history of winning in Calgary, and they picked up a couple MPs there. The NDP didn't exactly have a history of winning provincial elections in Alberta... or provincial elections in Manitoba before 1969...

Debater wrote:

The unpopularity of the Selinger Government was also another factor preventing the Mulcair NDP from being competitive.

How are the Manitoba Liberals doing in the polls these days? Is the unpopularity of the Bokhari Liberals (still in 3rd place) preventing the Liberals from becoming competitive?

Maybe it was a factor. But it was far from the only factor, and I suspect far from the largest. It's impossible to transpose results from provincial and federal elections across each other in Manitoba. If people voted the same way they do federally as they do provincially, the NDP would have won 6-7 seats in Winnipeg in 2011. Which didn't happen.

Debater wrote:

The NDP should be grateful that the Liberal increase in Elmwood-Transcona came more at the expense of the Conservatives and basically helped Blaikie edge out a win in that seat.

The NDP should be grateful that the Liberal increase in Elmwood-Transcona came more at the expense of the Conservatives and basically helped Blaikie edge out a win in that seat.

This is the second time I've pointed out to you that almost all the Liberal votes in Elmwood came from first-time voters and that it was not a vote split bewteen the Liberals and Conservatives that got Blaikie elected. Please have a look at the Liberal numbers in 2011 and in 2015 and you will see what I mean.

The NDP should be grateful that the Liberal increase in Elmwood-Transcona came more at the expense of the Conservatives and basically helped Blaikie edge out a win in that seat.

This is the second time I've pointed out to you that almost all the Liberal votes in Elmwood came from first-time voters and that it was not a vote split bewteen the Liberals and Conservatives that got Blaikie elected. Please have a look at the Liberal numbers in 2011 and in 2015 and you will see what I mean.

Unless someone has extensive, riding-level polling data about voting intentions among voters and non-voters in Elmwood-Transcona, which follows subjects from election to election and tracks their voting intention over long periods of time, and which also takes into account the redistribution of the riding (data which doesn't exist), you might as well be reading tea leaves to come to these conclusions.

Personally, I thought Blaikie got elected because he won more votes than the other candidates. But this is why I'm not a professional pundit.

The NDP should be grateful that the Liberal increase in Elmwood-Transcona came more at the expense of the Conservatives and basically helped Blaikie edge out a win in that seat.

This is the second time I've pointed out to you that almost all the Liberal votes in Elmwood came from first-time voters and that it was not a vote split bewteen the Liberals and Conservatives that got Blaikie elected. Please have a look at the Liberal numbers in 2011 and in 2015 and you will see what I mean.

If the Selinger government was looking for a bump in the polls after a mind-boggling number of spending and other announcements last week, they didn’t get one. In fact, the NDP – with just over three months before the April 19 provincial election – are now at their lowest level of support since their crushing defeat in 1988.

According to a Mainstreet/Postmedia poll taken in Manitoba on Jan. 7, the NDP are now in third place with only 23% support among decided voters.

The Opposition Tories remain in first place with 44% support and the Liberals, who have been surging of late under rookie Leader Rana Bokhari, are now in second spot at 27%.

NDP support is now almost identical to what it was in 1988 after the NDP lost a confidence motion in the house and were forced into a snap election. The NDP was reduced to 12 of 57 seats in the legislative assembly, picking up only 23.6% of the popular vote.

Apparently, Selinger wants to be the last NDP premier in Manitoba history. That is the only possible explanation for his insistence on staying on until after he leads the party to a third-place finish. He wants to make sure that, when he finally relinquishes the leadership, there will be no good reason for anyone else to seek the job.

He hates his own party and is determined to destroy it. No other theory makes any sense at all.

I think the level of PC support will be interesting to watch now. PC support has been so high the last couple of election cycles because the only way to stop the NDP was to vote PC. Now it appears there is no way the NDP can win the next election. Whether or not the PC support remains where it is will tell us if it's a hard-core right wing vote or if it's simply a stop-the-NDP vote.

Good point. It's entirely possible the MB Liberals could get another Carstairs moment. The Greens might have been able to make a breakthrough as well, but I think they are too committed to May's "Tories with recycling boxes" model of GP politics to be credible with that. sThey should have realized that the only way they could possibly take advantage of Selinger's collapse was to run clearly to the NDP's left on economic and social justice issues and to speak up for workers(they could have come out for the anti-scab legislation Selinger refused to even consider, for example, but they were too timid and too "unions are gross and icky-ewww" to try).

How exactly does this group propose to prevent a PC or Liberal win independent of the NDP? Are they proposing electing a majority Green government? Or perhaps forming a new party and suddenly winning?

Sorry, not understanding this at all. The only way to prevent the Liberals or PCs from winning in April is to vote for a different party in enough numbers as to block the PCs and Liberals from taking seats. I'm not saying that community organizing isn't important, but that operates in a different arena than elections, and we could very easily see a PC government elected regardless of any community organizing.

Possibly it's some sort of strategic voting thing designed to put a coalition into power which would stay in office just long enough to pass electoral reform, then call new elections in which alternative left parties could contend for representation.

How exactly does this group propose to prevent a PC or Liberal win independent of the NDP? Are they proposing electing a majority Green government? Or perhaps forming a new party and suddenly winning?

Sorry, not understanding this at all. The only way to prevent the Liberals or PCs from winning in April is to vote for a different party in enough numbers as to block the PCs and Liberals from taking seats. I'm not saying that community organizing isn't important, but that operates in a different arena than elections, and we could very easily see a PC government elected regardless of any community organizing.

..i really don't know so can't answer your questions. i do plan to attend though and listen to what they have to say. see what support they have.

The Manitoba NDP has been in office since 1999. This means that many people don't realize what a Tory win in the April provincial election will mean.

It's not that the NDP in government has done much for social and environmental justice -- far from it! After winning office, the NDP undid some of the damage done by the Tories in the 1990s. But they accepted the neoliberal status quo (such as the Tories' balanced-budget law) and implemented only very small progressive reforms. There is much to criticize in the record of the NDP government.

However, they haven't done much of what almost all other provincial governments have done: actively work to weaken rights and regulations that are barriers to corporate profit. For example, they haven't pushed privatization, public-private partnerships or the neoliberal "reform" of education. They haven't rewritten the Employment Standards Code and Labour Relations Act to roll back the rights of workers and unions. That's why so many employers want to see the NDP defeated....

Possibly it's some sort of strategic voting thing designed to put a coalition into power which would stay in office just long enough to pass electoral reform, then call new elections in which alternative left parties could contend for representation.

But that's just me guessing from 2,571.731712km(1598 miles) away.

Nope.

Solidarity Winnipeg has been pretty critical of the Liberals for their privatization schemes, and in their statement of purpose calls for a vote for the NDP. "Strategic voting" makes no sense in Manitoba, as the Liberals have been arguably positioning themselves to the right of the PCs, and there is no riding where parties such as the Greens (their left-cred is also questionable) or Communists are competitive (okay, maybe Wolseley for the Greens, but even then, not really).

I think Solidarity Winnipeg, in choosing to form now, on the eve of a likely NDP defeat, is faced with some difficult choices and are attempting to walk a very narrow tightrope.

While it is probably a good idea to not wait until the Tories take over to start talking about what we can do to resist a right-wing agenda, that means that how they relate to the NDP in the months leading up to the election is a huge question. I haven't seen the composition of the group yet, though I know a few members, but I suspect this is also a difficult thing to deal with internally.

After 16 years of what I would argue has been largely wasted opportunity, there are a lot of people on the left who have given up on the NDP and who are inclined to vote for another party (Green or Communist) or not vote at all. And there are others who very strongly value loyalty to the NDP, so much that they consider any criticism of the NDP or hint that one might not vote for the NDP to be the equivalent of treason on the eve of battle.

It's a tricky balance to toe -- on the one side, if SW called uncritically for people to focus all their energies on electing the NDP, there would be no reason to exist because the people who want to do that will just go work for NDP campaigns rather than join SW. On the other, if they are too critical of the NDP, then they risk alienating NDP supporters. On top of that, I suspect that after the election they're going to be working to try to build bridges with the "official" left in Winnipeg -- labour union heads, progressive groups, etc., which are all closely linked to the NDP, so they don't want to burn their bridges before then.

So, calling for a vote for the NDP while still being critical seems to me to be a way to try to please everyone (both externally, and likely internally as well). Seems like they're trying to do two contradictory things -- appeal to everyone who wants to achieve social and ecological justice regardless of their political affiliation, and also support the NDP (I suspect partly to avoid the PCs or Liberals from getting in, and partly to try to get a good relationship going with people like the labour officialdom). It's a difficult line for them to walk, but might be necessary.

I might check it out; I just hope that my lack of enthusiasm for the NDP doesn't end up excluding me.

Possibly it's some sort of strategic voting thing designed to put a coalition into power which would stay in office just long enough to pass electoral reform, then call new elections in which alternative left parties could contend for representation.

But that's just me guessing from 2,571.731712km(1598 miles) away.

Nope.

Solidarity Winnipeg has been pretty critical of the Liberals for their privatization schemes, and in their statement of purpose calls for a vote for the NDP. "Strategic voting" makes no sense in Manitoba, as the Liberals have been arguably positioning themselves to the right of the PCs, and there is no riding where parties such as the Greens (their left-cred is also questionable) or Communists are competitive (okay, maybe Wolseley for the Greens, but even then, not really).

there is no riding where parties such as the Greens (their left-cred is also questionable) or Communists are competitive (okay, maybe Wolseley for the Greens, but even then, not really).

The Greens can expect to poll 20% support in Wolseley with a ham sandwich running under their banner, so that is their best shot, albeit an uphill battle. That said, I'm confused about why the Greens aren't running their leader there this time. Beddome is running in Fort Garry. There is no chance of the Greens polling higher than single digits, and all that will happen is if the PCs win, he will be blamed for "splitting the vote." The Greens need to throw everything they can at Wolseley, and having their leader run anywhere other than their best riding divides what precious few resources they have.